Fiction in The Mad River

We ran out of food in the winter. It was after we had overthrown our parents. The last of it happened when I was still short for words. Back then, if I'd had a word like 'suffocating' to describe the day to day I'd have thought it, but our opportunities to practice vocabulary at home were restricted. We didn't have any alternative models to the short conversations — barked, one-sided — claggy with accusations that my father specialised in. There were five of us packed inside with room for four. Mother had turned in on herself and stopped speaking six months ago, we had learnt to weave around and not acknowledge this fact. The weather meant it was rarely worth leaving the inside, but under our roof at least it was tinderbox dry.

Our farm was embedded on the edge of an old pine forest, like our boundaries had been spat in defiance of the creeping treeline. In the forest's shadow, our family — weathered by thin rain and northern cold — dragged out a living from gnarled apple orchards first planted long before records were kept, scattered sheep, and a dozen head of cattle. The trees rose dark about our heads — charcoal smudging under the sky — silhouetting against the grey clouds, topped with a pale mist that hung dusty upon the tips of silent woodland. We had been here forever.

After our parents were what we called 'buried' in the corner of the far field under the scratching blackthorn, it was just the three of us in January. Betsy as the eldest — nearly an adult herself — was in charge and made our decisions. Before the food ran out, I as the middle child found myself doing most of the work on the farm while little Jonathan studied numerals at the kitchen table under Betsy's guidance. At the start of it all, Betsy promised us 'things would be simpler now,' and she'd 'look after the family in a way no-one ever had.'

I'd wondered if things would become easier now our parents were dead, but they didn't. It wasn't Father making the air downstairs feel like a furnace, Betsy had taken this role for herself. She ruled us with a combination of her size, her whims and moods, and one of the few things she knew about, superstition. Even before, we'd collected handfuls of berries to eat at her order as per the sayings and customs she assured us were true, and we left milk out for fairies. Whenever I had the chance I'd pick the frozen saucer of slush up in the morning and bring it back in to watch it melt before the other two were up. In time I became accustomed to drinking whatever was left. Betsy would tell us, whispering as if in conspiracy, that there were far worse things than we imagined waiting in the woods, and we believed her. We feared her retribution more than God's, she was a lot closer to us than him that winter. At the time I'd ponder if she was making things up to please herself or telling the truth. With caution I chose to believe her. I told myself there was some comfort in conforming, that it would be easier to pretend. As we became hungrier her ideas began to make more sense to me, and soon I began to believe with sincerity.

Father had had no interest in any superstitions beyond practical proverbs concerning the weather, but he'd grudgingly encourage anything that made his life easier. Therefore, I was already used to sticking to paths, careful when crossing any kind of boundary and I never threw out water after dark without having called ahead of me for fear of who I could strike. I knew only half the things that Father had done to make the farm run, and many of those I hadn't learned by heart. For instance, I knew the cows had to be milked in the morning but there were many cows, and it was not as if I'd helped with the cows often before. Much of the work given to me by Betsy was beyond my capability and capacity, accordingly our stores suffered. With the road blocked, the question loomed: who would try to make it out for help? If our parents had still been alive we wouldn't have needed help, the farm would still be running even with great drifts of snow in the lanes, sufficient winter stores would have been lain down long in advance, but the self-sabotaging decisions had been made quickly.

I did what I could half-inebriated by starvation, stumbling along, bodging small fixes, clearing areas of animal filth whenever I felt strong enough which, as we struggled to eat, became less often. It meant the stench of the yard was no longer avoidable even indoors, it filled up all our breathing. The smell competed with the fire and with the very last scraps of shared food we had pushed ourselves to ration. Silently, we wondered how many more bites each of us had hidden and where. I did know some things about the farm, and I picked up more as I tried, but so much more was locked away from me. There were tools I had no access to, that Father must have had and kept hidden somewhere that I didn't know about. I'd seen him use a sickle so many times over the years, handled it even, but it had vanished now I actually needed it.

Once the saucepan of three small potatoes had boiled that evening, I told her: 'We need a new sickle.'

'Use Father's.' She didn't even look up from the darning she was engaged in while sat beside Jonathan, he was busy scratching out algebra and trying not to blot.

'I don't know where it is. Some of the tools he must have put away somewhere. Can you go to market soon and buy us a new one?'

'No.'

'Fine, then I'll have to go to market myself.'

'No, you won't! The road is still blocked with snow. Very well, pest! I'll have to go tomorrow! I'll try, because we need other things too! You won't make me go!' She stormed away from my challenge but immediately paced back and pushed my side so hard my hands slapped the floor, then she stood over me glowering. I turned myself over and stared up into her complexion: all chicken bones in milk. Palms smarting, I tried to scowl opposition back up into her hollow face.

'Drain the potatoes.' She said, and I did as I was told.

The next day I went out with two of the good apples I had kept hidden for myself, taken from when we had gathered everything in from the orchards. I had planned to climb up a tree and eat them. In my apron the apples were still crisp and juicy, we had done well to save quite as many as we did, we'd have been dead a lot sooner without them. Too many shared a fate on the floor contested by wasp grubs and maggots before freezing into brown slush. For hours, I thought of all the apples we'd let rot in previous years and wished them to my hands, I imagined their scent sliding into my nostrils and mouth and transitioning from tart freshness into end of season decay. I let the imaginary fragrances blur with the fug of manure until I heard the farmhouse door click and then slam as it was pulled tight.

All morning, I'd heard the farmhouse door clattering open, closing, back open and then closed again, I counted the rhythm of Betsy, out the door, back in, to here, to there and so forth but not heading away until now. I knew she couldn't see me; I'd watched her like this before. I was tucked up in the beech tree on our side of the boundary, resting upon a wet bough concealed by the overlap of naked branches. I was getting ready to bite into the cold fruit and feel the unfriendly wind chill the juice spilling on my face. I watched as she staggered out of the house and made it to our gate before stopping to stare down the track over the flood of snow. There were no footprints either way, you couldn't make it out not on your own and no-one had come to check on us. It would be weeks now until thaw. I watched as she rested her hands on the gate before heaving a shudder through it. I was too far away to hear anything she might say. Over the distant hum of the wind reaching around our farm I crunched the apples between my teeth and felt my cheeks gratefully erupt with saliva. I watched my sister shake from what I assumed was frustration against the metal gate and hold her stomach, rubbing back and forth. It was unclear exactly what she was eating now but she had to be. She always made out she saved most of everything for me and Jonathan.

In the natural platform where branches lay like bowels of a ship I'd tuck away small items. In the past I'd pushed a coin into a depression in the bark, and a piece of sea glass Betsy had given me for my last birthday, lastly a star of twigs tied off with summer grass, it was my treasure, but today it was all gone. Instead, slick from the wet air, cold as midnight to touch, gently rocking to the creak of the tree, in its place to my astonishment and alarm lay an iron sickle. I stroked its blade and realised I couldn't remember if this looked anything like the farm's and I had no idea if I had placed it up here earlier. I was too hungry to remember.

*

I understand now why Betsy acted how she did: 'If it's not you, then it's her.' He whispered that to Betsy while I pretended to be asleep. And from then on — which is when it all really started — the darkness around the eiderdown became stifling. We kept sharing the room even after our parents were gone.

*

'It won't be long. It will thaw soon,' Betsy smiled that evening. Her teeth wobbled now when she spoke, her gums had shrivelled back so far, like the coming thaw she promised.

I nodded. She said something like that almost every night, but I didn't care, I had a sickle now. It didn't seem wise to mention it, especially its origin.

*

When it ended, it was fast. I was outside trying to do something about the dead cows, the ones Betsy had shot in desperation and then failed to butcher, the ones she'd insisted we didn't touch before because they'd be our fortune after the snow. The first I knew of it, Jonathan was out the door hobbling on his sparrow legs, his belly bloated with retained water, his body now just different twitching angles holding up dirty clothes. He couldn't move fast by then. The back of his head flew across the yard, wet hair and matter impacting with the ground, grisly comet fall in the wake of the shotgun's roar.

She chased me. I don't blame her. It was inevitable and she was only cutting our famine short. I sliced her with the sickle I now stored in the barn, then sprinted for the boundary wall's jutting stone teeth before the deep gullet under the trees. As I stumbled in the pine darkness I clattered into a figure standing in the needles, and I knew he was waiting for me. Behind me I heard a gunshot, but I paid no mind. He took my hand, and we set off deeper into the woods, only we've been walking ever such a long time, there's nothing to do but talk, he listens and suggests words from experience, and there's no sign of our destination or our stopping.